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Arizona Rep. Giffords Shot in Tucson

By NEIL KING JR.
[GIFFORDS] Associated Press

House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, (D., Ariz.), in Washington on Jan. 5.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, along with a federal judge and 16 others were shot outside a Safeway in Tucson in a shooting spree that left six dead, local law-enforcement officials said.

Local hospital officials said that Ms. Giffords, 40, had survived a gunshot wound to the head after emergency surgery but remained in very critical condition. The shooting occurred Saturday morning during a small "Congress on Your Corner" event that the lawmaker was holding in her district.

Jared Lee Loughner, the man suspected of a shooting spree that killed a Federal Judge and critically wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, had left a trail of online videos in which he railed against the government. WSJ's Neil Hickey reports.

Among those killed at the scene was Tucson's chief federal judge, John Roll, a friend of the lawmaker who had dropped by the event to say hello. Judge Roll had ruled on a number of heated immigration cases in the southern part of Arizona, which includes Ms. Giffords's district.

The Pima County Sheriff's office said it was holding the suspected gunman, who they identified as 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner.

Also, authorities released a photograph and a description in the early hours Sunday of a man "possibly associated" with the suspect in the shooting of Ms. Giffords. The Pima County Sheriff's Department said it was looking for a man between 40 and 50 years old wearing jeans and a dark blue jacket. The photograph appears to have been taken by a grocery-store surveillance camera.

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Pima County Sheriff's Department

Authorities released a photograph and a description of a man "possibly associated" with the suspect in the shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
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Prominent political shootings involving members of Congress.

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A surgeon at the University Medical Center in Tucson, Dr. Peter Rhee, said soon after Ms. Giffords was treated for her wound that he was "very optimistic" that she would recover, adding that the bullet had gone straight through her head.

But a close friend to Ms. Giffords, former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, said later in the evening that the lawmaker had received a "severe wound" and that doctors were "cautiously optimistic that she would survive."

Dr. Rhee said that 10 patients were treated at the hospital, and that five of them were in critical condition. In addition, he said, a nine-year-old girl who was brought to the hospital had died of gunshot wounds.

Eyewitnesses said that a couple dozen people had assembled in a line at around 10 a.m. to talk to the congresswoman when the gunman arrived. He cut in front of the line and shot her pointblank in the head with a semi-automatic pistol.

The gunman then sprayed the crowd with shots in rapid succession. The sheriff's office said the pistol had an extended magazine, which allowed him to take at least 20 shots at the crowd, which was hemmed in by a table and two concrete pillars.

WSJ's White House Correspondent Jonathan Weisman explains the political context and ramifications of the shooting today of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at a Tucson supermarket.

Two people then tackled the gunman when he tried to flee, and held him in place until the police arrived. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said in a news conference Saturday night that the gunman "probably would have shot more people" if he hadn't been tackled.

Steven Rayle, a Tucson area primary care physician and a former ER doctor, had come to the mall with a friend to meet Congresswoman Giffords. He was only moments from meeting her when the shooting began.

"I looked up and saw someone firing at Ms. Giffords," Mr. Rayle said. "Young guy. He looked determined and just kept firing."

As the shots continued, Mr. Rayle said he sought cover behind one of the concrete pillars. "I laid on the ground and pretended to be shot and dead," he said.

President Obama held a press conference to address the shooting in Tucson, Arizona that wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed Judge John Roll along with several bystanders.

Moments later, Mr. Rayle saw that the shooter had been tackled to the ground. He said he looked over to see Congresswoman Giffords leaning against a wall, and a staffer had placed an arm around her.

"Her face was bloody, but she was moving -- she was conscious, moving her fingers. So that was an encouraging sign."

Bob Feinman, a local trade consultant, arrived on the scene moments after the shooting. "People are laying there in pools of blood, people hysterically crying, saying 'Gabby Giffords got shot! Gabby Giffords got shot!'" he said.

"It wasn't chaos, because it was a very small group -- and most of the people were shot," Mr. Rayle said. "There were some mortally injured people that obviously were dead immediately."

Eyewitnesses said it took more than 10 minutes for the first ambulances arrive. Five people died on the scene.

The U.S. Army said in a statement that Mr. Loughner had tried to join the Army but was 'rejected for service. In accordance with the Privacy Act, we will not discuss why he was rejected."

Sheriff Dupnik told reporters that Mr. Loughner had had run-ins recently with local police, but didn't elaborate. "He was a subject of some polic interest in the recent past," he said.

Pima Country College in Tucson said that Mr. Loughner had been a student there from 2005 until September, when he was suspended for "violating the Student Code of Conduct." In a statement, the college said that police at the college had had "five contacts" with Mr. Loughner last year "for classroom and library disruptions."
[LOUGHNER_01] Arizona Daily Star/Associated Press

A March 2010 photo of Jared L. Loughner, the alleged shooter.

Mr. Loughner was then suspended after the college police found an objectionable video he made online. The college then informed Mr. Loughner and his parents that he would be allowed to return only if obtained a "mental health clearance indicating, in the opinion of a mental health professional, his presence at the College does not present a danger to himself or others."

In his press briefing, Mr. Dupnik, a Democrat, repeatedly lashed into political extremism and said that Arizona had become "the Mecca of prejudice and bigotry." He said Ms. Giffords was the explicit target of the attack.

"There's reason to believe that this individual might have a mental issue, and I think that people who are unbalanced might be especially susceptible to vitriol," the sheriff said of Mr. Loughner.

Ms. Giffords was first elected to Congress in 2006 after serving several years in the Arizona state House and Senate. She married the space shuttle astronaut Mark Kelly in 2007.

The shooting unleashed numerous statements of sorrow and outrage from leaders and lawmakers in Washington. President Barack Obama called the attack "a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society."
On the Scene in Tucson

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Arizona Daily Star/Associated Press

Witnesses and bystanders waited inside a police barrier in the parking lot of the Safeway grocery store where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D., Ariz.) and others were shot Saturday.

Newly elected House Speaker John Boehner said he was "horrified by the senseless attack" and called the shooting "an attack on all who serve."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) called the shooting a "terrible act of violence" and "a national tragedy."

In response, Republican leaders in the House announced that they would postpone all voting next week. House Republicans had planned a key vote next week to overturn Mr. Obama's health-care overhaul.

Rep. Giffords was recruited to run for Congress in 2006 by Rahm Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff who was at the time head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Mr. Emanuel noted that she was shot while "doing the Congress on your corner" kind of event that he pioneered in his home district in Chicago and that he encouraged new Democratic lawmakers to do regularly when back home.

The shooting was not the first time the congresswoman has had brushes with violence. Following the health care overhaul vote this year, her district office was vandalized.

"The rhetoric has gotten incredibly heated," she told MSNBC in March. "Not just the calls, the emails, the slurs. Things have really gotten spun up."

Dr. Peter Rhee, trauma surgeon at the University of Arizona Medical Center, gives an update to the press on the condition of ten victims of the Tucson, Arizona shooting including wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

She also specifically called out a "targets" website created by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the 2010 midterm elections that featured a crosshair over hers and other districts. Republicans campaigned heavily against Ms. Giffords, a moderate Democrat in a Republican-leaning district, last year.

"We can't' stand for this, we do really need to realize that the rhetoric and firing people up, and you know things for example we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, the thing is the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district," she told MSNBC.

In a posting on her Facebook page Saturday, Ms. Palin expressed her "sincere condolences" to the families of those killed or injured in the shooting and said she was praying for "for peace and justice."

Rep. Giffords earned a reputation as a strong fundraiser and campaigner who was deeply engaged in Arizona's bitter immigration debate.
Giffords at the Capitol

Photos from her career.

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David Sanders/Daily Star/Associated Press

On Nov. 7, 2006, Ms. Giffords celebrated the election win that put her into the House.

A member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, she won a tough reelection battle last fall against a Republican, Jesse Kelly, who was championed by many tea-party groups. She won the race by fewer than 4,000 votes.

Tea Party Nation, the group started by Tennessee lawyer Judson Phillips, put out a statement to its supporters decrying the shooting. "Congressman Giffords was a liberal, but that does not matter now. No one should be the victim of violence because of their political beliefs."

The statement went on to say that "no matter what the shooter's motivations where, the left is going to blame this on the Tea Party Movement."

The 8th District shares a 100-mile-long border with Mexico.

US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) remained alive and in critical condition Saturday after she was shot by a gunman at a local event Tucson, Fox News Channel reported, citing a source in the hospital. Video courtesy of KGUN-TV Tucson.

Ms. Giffords's district is overall politically moderate, represented for years by an openly gay, moderate Republican, Jim Kolbe, then by Ms. Giffords. But the GOP in southeastern Arizona is deeply divided. A moderate Republican hand-picked by Mr. Kolbe to succeed him after he retired in 2006 was beaten badly by Randy Graf, a staunch conservative who ran a strong, anti-immigration platform. He was in turn beaten badly by Ms. Giffords.

The pattern repeated itself in 2010. While Arizona Democrats were swamped in November, Ms. Giffords survived in large part because Republican primary voters picked the most conservative candidate to challenge her.

The district includes part of Tucson, but also large stretches of ranch lands stretching to the Mexico border, where anti-illegal-immigration sentiment runs strong. During the runup to the November election, the other Tucson representative, liberal Democrat Raul Grijalva, had his office vandalized.

Ms. Giffords's family owns tire stores in the area.